Category Archives: Individual Rights

UPDATE II: Charlie Sheen’s Out of the AA ‘Troll Hole’ (“Medicate Mercer!”)

Celebrity, Drug War, Free Will Vs. Determinism, Individual Rights, Pseudoscience, Psychiatry

The following is an excerpt from “Charlie Sheen’s Out of the AA ‘Troll Hole,'” this week’s WND.COM column:

“I liked Charlie Sheen’s ‘Platoon,’ but not his comedic ‘work’ (that’s a pretentious word used by America’s self-aggrandizing entertainers and jesters to describe their occupation). Sheen does, however, get high marks for bucking the drug-addiction industry, which bullies drug users into treatment, and has fabricated a science in support of the disease theory of addiction. …

… Unlike the automatons of the entertainment industry — and the population at large — the intemperate Mr. Sheen refuses to accept as holy writ the teachings of a therapeutic cult that coerces its adherents into conformity. …

… Naturally, the Shamans, Left and Right, are furious with Sheen. … In thinking about addiction, opinions have converged. So-called social progressives and conservatives alike share the same ideological hangover from the Prohibition era (with a touch of AA sadism). Dr. Keith Ablo, like Drew Pinsky, is thus every bit as religious about roping the actor into abstinence and AA.”

The complete column is “Charlie Sheen’s Out of the AA ‘Troll Hole,'” now on WND.COM.

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UPDATE I: Heidi H. wrote on Facebook: “I’m baffled by your fascination and admiration for Charlie Sheen. He’s a pig. His excuse is fame and crack. What do you find so endearing about him?”

Me: “Heidi: where do you get fascinated? The war on drugs is a crucial issue to those who care about liberty. The addiction industry factors into that equation. Perhaps this will better explain:
http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article…_list_view.php?editid1=198

UPDATE II: If they could, they would chemically lobotomize me too. The reader below has diagnosed me with “Oppositional Defiant Disorder,” and bemoans the fact that I have not been duly medicated. I’m proud to be in opposition to tyranny, dependency and the decimation of free will by the therapeutic authorities (who often work hand-in-hand with the state).

DiLorenzo Dishes It Out To Subcommittee On Domestic Monetary Policy

Business, Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Healthcare, Individual Rights, Inflation

Pearls before swine? Probably. Still, the freedom movement is gaining momentum. First came Randy Barnett’s powerful testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee (read “Turning Citizens Into Subjects: Why The Health Insurance Mandate Is Unconstitutional”). My good friend Thomas DiLorenzo, Professor of Economics at Loyola University in Maryland, followed. Tom tried to explain to members of the Committee on Financial Services (Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology) that the “Fed’s monetary policies tend to create temporary and unsustainable increases in employment while being the very engine of recession and depression that creates a much greater degree of job destruction and unemployment.”

Here’s an excerpt from “How the Fed Fuels Unemployment”:

When the Fed expands the money supply excessively it not only is prone to creating price inflation, but it also sows the seeds of recession or depression by artificially lowering interest rates, which can ignite a false or unsustainable “boom” period. Lower interest rates induce people to consume more and save less. But increased savings and the subsequent business investment that it finances is what fuels economic growth and job creation.
Lowered interest rates and wider availability of credit caused by the Fed’s expansionary monetary policy causes businesses to invest more in (mostly long-term) capital projects (primarily real estate in the latest boom-and-bust cycle), and there is an accompanying expansion of employment in those industries. But since the lower interest rates are caused by the Fed’s expansion of the money supply and not an increase in savings by the public (i.e., by the free market), businesses that have invested in long-term capital projects eventually discover that there is not enough consumer demand to justify their investments. (The reduced savings in the past means consumer demand is weaker in the future). This is when the “bust” occurs.
The economic damage done by the boom-and-bust policies of the Fed occur in the boom period when resources are misallocated in the ways described here. The “bust” period is actually a necessary cure for the economic miscalculations that have occurred, as businesses liquidate their unsound investments and begin to make decisions on realistic, market-based interest rates. Prices and wages must return to reality as well.
Government policies that bail out businesses that have made these bad investment decisions will only delay or prohibit economic recovery while encouraging more of such behavior in the future (the “moral hazard problem”). This is how short recessions can be turned into seemingly endless ones. Worse yet is for the Fed to create even more monetary inflation, rather than allowing the necessary economic adjustments to take place, which will eventually set off another boom-and-bust cycle.

MORE.

Obama’s Hate-Your-Boss Hotline

Barack Obama, Business, Economy, Individual Rights, Liberty, Regulation

“Get in the game,” the president instructed U.S. business leaders, in an address to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce today. As Bloomberg.com reported, this audacious president urged business to “support their country by moving cash from the sidelines into the economy,” “hiring more American workers,” and, generally “investing in this nation.” This, as Obama carves greater and greater sections out of the hide of American businesses for the assorted, unproductive oink sectors.

Just the other day, this deeply silly man “launched a new program at the Department of Labor which will refer workers who have complaints about their bosses to a toll free number at the American Bar Association, where they can get a lawyer to work on their case on a contingency fee basis.” (Via Elizabeth MacDonald of Fox Business) Yes, litigation always reduces the costs of doing business, doesn’t it?! What’s not to like in a collaboration between “the federal government and private bar” to promote “worker rights,” already covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and other legislation. This is how Obama is “doing his part to improve the business climate” in this country.

The meek reply to BHO’s demands from Johanna Schneider, “who directs external relations for the Business Roundtable,” will not do. “Jobs will follow demand,” she said. “Unless you see sustained demand for your product or your service, you cannot from a fiduciary standpoint invest in more employees.”

Business leaders will have to learn to speak the language of individual/natural rights, and link the rights of property and freedom of association to prosperity and peace. Unless they sound morally indignant about the violation of their rights, parasitical collectivists such as BHO will continue to make light of and mock the “incredible pressure to cut costs and keep margins up,” as the Idiot-in-Chief put it.

Frankly, My Dear Egyptians, I Don’t Give a Damn

Democracy, Foreign Policy, Founding Fathers, Individual Rights, Israel, Middle East, Nationhood, Regulation

The following is an excerpt from my new WND.COM column, “Frankly, My Dear Egyptians, I Don’t Give a Damn” (http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=259413):

“Members of the American chattering class have been tripping over one another to show off their solidarity with the popular uprising in Egypt.

After being hammered left and right for his hands-off approach to Egyptians’ demand for democracy, Barack Obama complied, and waxed fat about those universal rights that belong to the Egyptian people.

You know, the same rights sundered stateside by U.S. representatives – who’ve designated for the Great American Unwashed special ‘free speech zones’ where they may lawfully assemble, and who’ve proposed emergency Internet-killing and net-neutrality laws, individual health-care mandates, and on and on. For the edification of Egyptians Against Freedoms Flouted in America, it has been estimated that our federal government may use the criminal process to enforce over 300,000 federal regulations. Hey, you could be an outlaw and you don’t know it!

… What remains of the rights to property and self-ownership in the soft tyranny that is the USA is regulated and taxed to the hilt. …

… More often than not, Americans who yearn for the freedoms their forebears bequeathed to them are labeled demented and dangerous. I’ve yet to hear liberty-deprived peoples the world over stand up for the tea-party patriots. When they do – I’ll gladly galvanize on their behalf. …”

The complete column is “Frankly, My Dear Egyptians, I Don’t Give a Damn,” now on WND.COM.